Nawazuddin Siddiqui says budget and star power drive the film and audience’s decision to watch it

Actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui does not mince words when it is about issues close to his heart. After raking up the issue of racism in the movie industry, Nawazuddin’s tweet about his recent release, Babumoshai Bandookbaaz’s budget has got heads turning.

Talking to indianexpress.com, Nawaz said, “I tweeted though I did not want to, but people have been talking about the budget of my film. Naturally, a film is a flop or hit in terms of the budget it is made on. But a few in the industry, who claim to know everything about the film, have shared wrong information and declared the film a flop. It is important to put the budget and facts in front. I thought the truth should come out.”

The question is does the budget really affect a film’s performance at the box-office? 

“It is a small film with a tight budget. I signed this film in 2013, but it didn’t work out. We worked again and the heroine left. Now we did it again with all new actors. But because budget comes in the picture, the importance shifts from team’s passion to how much it manages to earn. I as an actor do not get affected with the budget or anything but the efforts of the entire team should not go wasted and hence, I thought we should speak about it.”

Nawaz agrees that budget and star power both drive the film and the audience’s decision to watch it, though he rues the fact that people very comfortably declare a small budgeted film a flop while a big banner or good star cast film is called a hit without realising the cost of each film.

Referring to his 2017 release Haraamkhor, Nawaz said, “The film was made with Rs 70 lakhs. We sold the rights to Netflix for Rs 1 crore. So, how is the film flop from any angle? However, when a big star cast film earns even 70 crores, it is declared a hit. Arre yaar, the budget of the film is beyond Rs 100 crores, on what basis are you calling the film a hit? You know what is the problem? The problem is that these people who talk about box office figures, who declare a film hit or flop, do not even care about small films.”

“I do all sort of films, high or low budget. A film does not flop because of bad content, it flops because budget farak padta hai. It is hard for a low budget films to be declared a hit. It works well but people don’t talk about it. 3 crore ki film 16 crore kamale toh hit nahi hai par 100 crores ki film 70 kamale toh hit hai, yeh kaha ka hisaab hua,” asks Nawaz.

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